Biography

Gerry was born in New York City, the son of Elbridge Thomas Gerry (1837–1927) and Louisa Matilda Livingston Gerry (1836–?), and the great grandson of Elbridge Gerry (1744–1814), the fifth Vice President of the United States (who had given his name to the term gerrymandering).

In the summer of 1899, Gerry and his brother Robert were tutored by William Lyon Mackenzie King, who later became the Prime Minister of Canada. Gerry graduated from Harvard University in 1901. He studied law and was admitted to the Rhode Island bar in 1906. Gerry married Mathilde Townsend, a wealthy Washington society woman, in 1910. They divorced in 1925. Gerry later married Edith Stuyvesant Dresser (1873–1958), the widow of George Washington Vanderbilt II (1862–1914).